Parallel vs. Hearthstone
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The Hearthstone esports scene isn't what it used to be, but it remains one of the most-played and most-watched mainstream TCG games around.
That said, crypto's darling TCG Parallel is much newer, and it's now trying to ramp up to where Hearthstone is receding from: a teeming competitive scene.
For example, earlier this year Parallel announced Parallel League, a series of global tournaments featuring a $500k total prize pool. Before that, in December 2023, Parallel hosted its first major tournament with a slew of Hearthstone pros invited, including Bunnyhoppor, the 2022 Hearthstone World Champion.
Accordingly, Parallel is revving up on esports and attracting top TCG talent at a time when Hearthstone creators Blizzard aren't doubling down on competitive play.
This dynamic makes it inevitable that the Hearthstone community will have to increasingly contend with this new rising force in TCGs.
We saw some of that contending for the worse this week when Hearthstone player Zeddy blasted Parallel for, and I'll paraphrase here, making players have to invest in costly NFTs to play.
Yet Parallel is free-to-play and doesn’t require NFTs, but for those who do choose the NFT path, they can own and trade their digital cards on secondary markets—similar to Magic: The Gathering trading in real life. And while Parallel's base NFT packs are affordable, some rare cards are listed at higher prices on secondary markets, just like with MTG.
Funnily enough, Zeddy’s comments this week mainly served to spark a wave of attention and discussion about Parallel on Twitter, surely piquing the curiosity of more than a few Hearthstone players. This comes as several top Hearthstone pros have already made the jump to explore what Parallel has to offer.
It's not a gimmick, either. I'm obsessed with games, and I've played Parallel, and I think it's legitimately a strong game. If you're skilled at Hearthstone, those skills translate over well and can lead to new kinds of experiences and opportunities around a promising new franchise.
Why not try it out, then? Anyone knocking Parallel over NFTs before they've even explored the game firsthand is doing themself a real disservice!
The grand question for now, of course, is whether Parallel can keep gaining ground on the TCG incumbents. We'll have to wait and see, but personally I like their chances!
📰 General news
- Arbitrum deployed Stylus
- Hypersub added support for monthly credit card payments
- KALI launched lextek.eth, an onchain legal text generator powered by NFTs
- Magic Eden revealed a new US website, magiceden.us
- Nouns are considering a new legal framework, Wyoming's DUNA
🎨 Cryptoart & music
- BasePaint unveiled the BasePaint Animations collection
- Coop Records reached +100k unique collectors
- Party started a rewards campaign for the top Sets creators and collectors
- Sarah Friend released new extensions of her dynamic Lifeforms collection
- Rise of Blus: A Nouns Movie received a new wave of film festival invitations
- Sup unveiled Issue #5 of the Blitmap comic series
🏆 Digital collectibles
- CryptoKitties released an Egg NFT collection, with the floor price temporarily rising to 0.39 ETH in the initial excitment
- Jenkins the Valet is winding down the Azurbala and Writer's Room NFT projects
- Pudgy Penguins unveiled the 1,000 Day Pengus Club soulbound token
🎮 Decentralized gaming
- Bored Ape Yacht Club opened pre-downloads for Dookey Dash: Unclogged
- Forgotten Runiverse unveiled a new dungeon, The Pyramid
- Nouns approved funding the Launders LAN 2 Counter-Strike tournament
- Paladins DAO conducted its Pirate Nation Speed Trial tournament
- Parallel launched its redesigned Cards Database page
- Realms released its new marketplace on Starknet
📱 Onchain social
- Ethereum Follow Protocol opened its testnet to the public
- Moshicam made photo sharing free for all users
- Namespace added support for minting ENS subnames on Base
- Orb added support for mintable Zora and Pods videos
- Rainbow now supports Warpcast mobile transactions
🪙 NFTfi
- ApeCoin announced its ApeChain Blueprint plans
- GONDI released the V3 of its lending protocol
- Liquity published its V2 codebase, revealing that its new LUSD borrow positions will be represented as NFTs
- Ronin reactivated its native bridge
🌐 Virtual Worlds
- Decentraland is seeking alpha testers for Decentraland 2.0
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- 📱 Grab a Beer, We're Going Bier Mode - YB
- ▶️ A Beginner's Quickstart Guide to Playing Nouns - Mike Good
- 🪙 Retrofunding via Rounds and Spam - Chris Carella
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